Santa Cruz will be Silicon Valley’s first fully fiber city

Homes and businesses in Santa Cruz are one step closer to full fiber-to-the-premise broadband service. The Santa Cruz city council voted unanimously last week to move ahead with negotiating an FTTP/FTTH partnership with a local independent Internet service provider, Cruzio. As envisioned, the city would own – and finance – the network, Cruzio would operate it and the two would work together to build it.

Cruzio’s proposal to the city also leaves the door open for other ISPs to join the project – that’ll be one of many details that the forthcoming negotiations will address.

The cost to build a fiber network that would reach every premise in the City of Santa Cruz will be about $52 million, according to an estimate prepared by Columbia Telecommunications Corporation. That includes the citywide distribution network, laterals and drops to reach homes and businesses, and the electronics on both ends needed to run it.

There’s significant risk in any municipal FTTH venture, but the Santa Cruz project has several unique aspects that should work to reduce the uncertainty. First and foremost, it involves a partnership with a longstanding and successful incumbent service provider. Cruzio is one of the largest surviving independent ISPs in California, has been delivering Internet service in Santa Cruz for 25 years and has about 3,000 subscribers inside the city limits alone – roughly 15% of the market.

Constructing Santa Cruz Fiber requires the issuance of revenue lease bonds to cover the capital investment as well as two years of debt service while the project is being constructed and brought online.

At this point, no commitments have been made, except that Cruzio has pledged up to $45,000 to pay for the costs of getting to a final operating and financing plan, which will need the approval of the city council and, likely, voters. If all goes to schedule, Santa Cruz’s fiber network could be up and running in three years.

Tellus Venture Associates is assisting the City of Santa Cruz with its FTTH project. I’m not a disinterested observer. Take it for what it’s worth.